That’s right. A Native American tribe is actually blaming their drinking on…yep, those evil beer companies:

The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota announced Thursday it will demand $500 million from five international beer manufacturers for the cost of health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the reservation.

The lawsuit also targets four off-site beer stores in Whiteclay, Neb., a town with a population of about a dozen people on the South Dakota border that sells nearly 5 million cans of beer annually.

Now, the daughter of a friend of mine works at a bank up in Northern Minnesota, where tribal members come in to cash their huge casino dividend checks (tens of thousands of dollars each month). And she will testify that on a regular basis, even first thing in the morning, they will be reeking of booze, so much so that she has to back away from the teller’s window.

Interestingly, the problem existed long before the advent of the modern liquor industry:

The Connecticut-sized reservation has struggled with alcoholism and poverty for generations, despite an alcohol ban since 1832. Pine Ridge legalized alcohol in 1970, but restored the ban two months later.

So, the tribal members have been breaking their own tribal laws for centuries. But it’s the fault of the beer companies. I get it.

Then again, why would anyone be surprised by the endless stream of absurdities that the modern liberal “nanny state” has spawned? It pretty much started when they decided to blame bartenders for the actions of drunk drivers. Get sloshed and ram your car into a minivan full of kids? No problem – it was the tavern’s fault. You didn’t drink too much – the bartender “over-served” you.

Since then, we have found a scapegoat for just about every bad decision a human being can make:

Smoke two packs a day for 40 years and get lung cancer? It’s all the fault of “Big Tobacco.”

Eat junk food until you’re as big as a house and on your way to diabetes? Just put the blame on McDonalds and Burger King.

They’ve even tried to blame gun manufacturers for the murderous rampages of gang bangers and drug dealers, not to mention the Mexican boarder chaos. By that twisted logic, I guess that graffiti is the fault of spray paint manufacturers.

And on and on it goes. Even the preposterous “housing crisis” (which was the inevitable result of government sticking its nose into private transactions, forcing banks to lend money to people who could not possibly pay it back) has been used to let what we used to rightly call “deadbeats” off the hook.

Deadbeats? Oh, heavens, no! They were merely the “victims” of “predatory lending” practices. Now, if that isn’t an oxymoron, nothing is. The last time I checked, there is no record of gangs of guys with briefcases full of money, grabbing people off the street and telling them,”here’s $200,000 – you’re going to take it and buy a house, or else.”

These poor people were “duped” – they didn’t realize what they were signing. Hogwash. Anyone in the real estate business can tell you that NO ONE with an IQ above a plant can honestly say that they “didn’t know” the amount, terms, requirements, and legal ramifications of any mortgage backed home loan. From the first application to signing of papers at closing, the details are clearly spelled out.

Yet now that the bubble has burst, and their homes are worth less than the amount they borrowed, they want to have their loans “forgiven” – try that with a Chicago loan shark. But no worries, President Obama will come to the rescue (by confiscating $26 Billion from the same banks he forced to give out the loans in the first place):

And guess who will get hit with all those new bank fees that will be required to make up the difference – their customers (that would be you). But once again, Obama knows that you’ll blame the banks.

Ditto the “mortgage backed securities” – I didn’t buy into them when I first heard about them, and I’m no real estate wizard. So, if people with post-graduate degrees in finance were stupid enough to take the risk, why should the banks and the taxpayers have to foot the bill?

But on and on it goes, because in 21st Century America, no one is responsible for their own bad decisions anymore. And even when the problem is caused by too much government, the liberal solution is always…more government.